13th August, 2025 in Folklore, Local & Family History

The magical landscape of Wales

By Benjamin Stimpson

Wales holds in the popular imagination a reputation of magic, mystery, and ancient ways. A land apart from its’ neighbours, Cymru has been a destination for centuries, but more importantly it is home to a proud culture. Yet, despite the richness of its’ heritage, only certain aspects of Welsh tradition is well known in the rest of Britain and the world.  The magical characters of the Four Branches of Y Mabinogi and other tales involving figures as Taliesin, Ceridwen, Myrddin, and a few others are known, but the vast majority of Welsh magical figures are relatively unknown. Ben Stimpson author Of Doves and Ravens: The Witches and Wisefolk of Wales and the Borders talks about the history behind these unknown people.

Like its English and Scottish counterparts, every corner of Wales has a magical figure connected to it. Whether hag like beings (the gwrach), fairies, or human practitioners of charming and cursing, every region has its story. Many of these figures are legends, but many others were historical practitioners who plied their cunning trade from the height of the middle ages into the modern period. The dynion hysbys (‘knowing ones’) are the Welsh counterparts to the cunning folk of many other European cultures (bean/fear feasa in Ireland, wisemen/women in England, pellars in Cornwall, curanderas in Spain, hexenmeisters in Germany etc,). This semi-professional position in society existed from the medieval age right through to the beginning of the twentieth century.

In a society where the supernatural forces were understood to play a role, communities often resorted to magical means to solve some of life’s problems. Say you lost something valuable, or one of your cows wandered off, or you became sick with a strange malady you would turn to the dynion hysbys to figure out a solution. While people would go to the clergy for God’s help, sometimes it was faster to approach the local wiseman/woman. Utilizing astrology, old charms, conjuring spirits, summoning the faeries, or even sometimes common psychology the dynion hysbys gave their prescriptions… for a price. These were magicians for hire, wise in the ways of the supernatural, but understood to mostly be working on the side of good.

The enemy of the dynion hysbys were those who practiced malefic magic. These were not necessarily called witches in Wales, however, because more often than not anyone could perform a curse. In North Wales is the famous Ffynnon Elian (St. Elian’s Well), which for centuries was a cursing well, a spot anyone could go to and pay to have someone cursed using the power of the sacred well. Indeed, the very notion of witchcraft in Wales is so different from England and Scotland. In large parts of the folklore, witchcraft was not necessarily different from the practices everyone did, but whether it was intended for good or ill. A witch was not something you were, it was something you did, and anyone was potentially capable of causing harm. Only in later centuries did English concepts of witches and witchcraft enter the culture and we see similar motifs of witches causing trouble, dedicating themselves to the devil, and resembling the English folkloric witch more. 

Even the very word witch was imported into the Welsh language for the sole purpose of describing the crime of witchcraft as it was understood in the English law codes. It often surprises the uninformed to learn that there were only five official witchcraft trials in Wales, as opposed to the hundreds in Scotland and England. The dynion hysbys in many folktales therefore primarily stop theft (a much more serious crime in Welsh legal tradition), unwitch someone who has been cursed, and prescribe healing to the sick.  Many of these characters, grounded in historical practitioners, became central to local legend and many sites connected to them remain to this day.

Despite the cultural difference between Welsh and English cultures around witchcraft, witches do appear in abundance in the folklore, with many of them capable of both harming and healing. One of the legendary witches of North Wales, Bella Fawr of Denbigh, appears in the lore as a monstrous member of the Llanddona witches who arrived one day shipwrecked on an Anglesey Beach and who went on to terrorized the island. Yet, in another folktale, the same Bella appears as a wisewoman assisting her neighbour uncover the identity of a harming neighbour. This legendary Bella is based upon a late 18th century fynion hysbys, Bela of Dinbych, who travelled the markets of the north reading her playing cards to any who wished their fortune told.

Aside from the witches and dynion hysbys, a third branch of magical character appears in the lore. These purely legendary magicians appear connected to every region, and often have the same stock stories connected to them. Among them are clergymen or monks, knights, prophets, and regular trickster figures. Some of these characters were based on historical figures from history, while some are purely legendary. The classic image of the welsh magician is: a character who learns his art from a master after mishaps with a magic book; he (as they are almost always male) compacts with the Devil to protect crops, bring in the harvest, build bridges, and punish thieves. He is able to conjure spirits to ride them around the world, and often visits Kings and Popes. Near the end of his life, the magician tries to save himself by cheating the Devil one last time and usually is buried in the wall of the local church. Some of the most well-known of this peculiarly specific Welsh characters involve John o’ Kent, Huw Llwyd, Robin Ddu Ddewin, and Sion Davies Sirevan. These stock characters, virtually identical in story to each other with onloy the specific information adapted for place, appear to have links with the legendary magicians of England and Scotland, such as Michael Scotus, Friar Bacon, and the archetype Dr Johann Faustus. I theorize that Welsh tradition was introduced to these characters and assimilated them entirely to form a uniquely Welsh set of tales.